How to Make Rotary Dremel Tool

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Rotary Dremel Tools are essential gadgets for every DIY hobbyists. A rotary tool can be used to cut, drill, sand and engrave virtually any material and make awesome DIY projects at home. Commercially available rotary tools are expensive to buy and not much useful to a casual user at home.

In this Instructable, i decided to make a simple rotary dremel tool that is affordable and powerful enough to be a good useful tool for home use. This tool is easy to handle and simple enough to be used with one hand.

Note: This is a very powerful rotary tool and should be kept away from children.

From Home & Local Store: PVC Pipe(size based on motor used), Old USB Power cable and connecting wires.

Step 2: Watch the Video

A video is a wonderful tool that provides deep insight to the procedure and makes it easy to follow. However, also visit next steps for additional details and images.

Step 3: Make Tool Body

Take a small (diameter and length depends on the motor used) piece of PVC pipe.

Using a drill or a hot soldering iron make a hole at the center of the PVC Pipe.

Solder wires to both the terminals off the toggle switch.

Insert the switch through the hole made in PVC Pipe and secure it with hot glue.

Take a high rpm DC motor and solder wires to the motor terminals.

Strip an old USB Cable and cut the Data wires from it, so that only the two wires remain. Note: Use a multimeter to identify the data wires. The pin 2 and pin 3 are the data wires.

Note: Make sure to refer to the images to avoid any errors.

Step 4: Connect the Components

Cut a circular piece of cardboard with diameter equivalent to that of the PVC pipe.

Make a hole at the center of the cardboard and pass the USB cable through the center hole.

Refer to the circuit schematic and connect the components.

Connect IN4007 diode in series to the motor to protect the USB port from Back EMF.

Apply hot glue and secure the motor inside the PVC pipe.

Insert all the extra wires inside the PVC pipe and seal the opening using the circular cardboard piece.

Note: The connection of the diode will depend on the direction of rotation of motor. For clockwise rotation connect the diode in forward bias between the motor terminal and Vcc (pin 1) of USB port. For anti-clockwise rotation connect the diode in reverse bias between the motor terminal and Pin 4 of USB port. Before sealing the components inside the pvc pipe, check the direction of motor rotation and connect the diode accordingly.

Step 5: Add Accessories

Take a mini drill chuck and tightly secure it over the motor shaft.

This mini chuck will be used to hold various dremel accessories to be used while working on projects.

Get the various dremel accessories like Cutter blades, mini drill bits, sander and much more.

Install the dremel blades tightly on the blade holding tool.

Insert the blade holding tool in the mini drill chuck and secure it tightly.

Similarly , you can also insert mini drill bits to the drill chuck and use the rotary tool as the drill.

Step 6: Testing

Our Powerful rotary tool is now ready. Make sure to tightly secure the mini chuck to the motor shaft and check it periodically. This rotary tool works perfectly on almost every material and is a great tool while making DIY projects at home.

However, you can also make few upgrades:

Add a motor speed controller to the circuit to get more control over the tool.

Cut a plastic bottle along the neck and add it to the rotary tool over the blade for protection.

The motor i used works in the voltage range of 3-12v, so you can also add a li-ion battery pack and TP4056 charging module to make a cordless rechargeable rotary tool.

So Friends, this here concludes the instructable, stay tuned and Follow to receive regular updates. Don't forget to provide your valuable suggestions in comments section below. In case you might have missed, watch the video and see how i made this DIY rotary dremel tool at home.

Thanks for appreciating my work.With 12v it will be much faster and better, if possible for greater control, also connect a speed controller to the circuit. There are many articles on google that show how to add the speed control functionality to a DC motor.